A Prayer of Invocation

Part of this prayer was actually published in the church newsletter of Soloman's Porch, so I thought I would also display it here for you as well. Here goes:

O come, o come, beloved Lover of our souls.
You Who knows us deeper and more intimately than even we know ourselves
You Who see us as we truly are, not as we want to be, not as we should be, but as we are today, this moment
You see us and You declare, each of us individually and collectively,
Your treasured and precious ones.
Fill us, O Father with Your peace which surpasses all understanding.
Amen

My Thanksgivings

Yet another excerpt from my weekly devotions. The scripture text for this time was 1Corinthians 10:16,
Being that tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, I thought I might start by sharing some of the things I am thankful for this year. I am thankful for God Who continues to draw me closer to Himself each day. I am thankful for the Holy Spirit Who renews me daily from within. I am thankful for Jesus Christ, by Whose blood I have been saved and in Whose footsteps and am learning to walk more and more in each day. I am thankful for my family who support me so much with their love, prayer and finances. I am thankful for my friends, who continue to be living representations of God’s love and grace towards me. I am thankful for my church, in whose fellowship I can continue to grow in my relationship with God and His people. I am thankful for the V.A. who have given me a place where I can both earn a living and carry out my ministry of love and care to those who need it here. I am thankful for my fellow chaplains here, both those who supervise me, as well as those who minister along side me, for continuing to work with me and help me to improve in my serving of others. I am thankful for all of the staff here who I also work with, that you value my presence and acknowledge my service to these veterans. I am thankful for you veterans out there, that you humbly and graciously accept my service to you even when it may fall short of your expectations. The list could go on forever. Indeed it could for each of us, could it not? We each have many things and people in our lives to give thanks for. We each have many blessings from God for which to give Him praise, do we not? Let us remember that tomorrow as we gather around the table with our friends and family.
Let us also remember the greatest gift God has ever given us, that is His Son, Jesus Christ. His blood was shed for the forgiveness of our many sins and His body broken that ours might be whole again. So, when we break bread and share drink tomorrow, let us remember the One Whose body was broken and His blood shed for us. Let us invite Him to be there with us at the table as we do each time we celebrate His Communion, for as Paul wrote in the passage I read this morning, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?”

Speaking to Our Hearts

This is another excerpt from my devotions this morning. The passage quoted is from the Gospel of John 21:1-19,

Imagine what it would have been like to be Peter at this moment. Just last week you were eating dinner Jesus, when He turned to you and said, “Peter, the Devil wishes to sift you like wheat, but I have been praying that you will weather the test.” This would certainly raise my awareness. This is the man you have come to see as the very Son of God, the Messiah you’ve been waiting for years to come. The One Who had said you would receive the keys to the kingdom and that upon you He would build His church. And now He’s say the devils wants to “sift you like wheat!” Whatever could he mean? Then Jesus tells you that you will betray Him not once, not twice, but three times during the coming night. Such is unfathomable and of course you deny it adamantly. Yet just a few hours later you find yourself doing the very thing you just swore you would never do. And you do it just as Jesus said you would. Of course you find this a cause for weeping. The devil has come and you have been sifted out. You betrayed the very One who entrusted you to lead His future church. You have failed as a leader among your fellow disciples. Your world is falling apart.
You can’t even bear to watch your Lord’s execution. You feel at a total loss for what to do next. Then you hear from a fellow disciple that Jesus’ body is missing and you run to the tomb only to find the burial cloths folded neatly in the corner. Your world continues to stumble out of control. You decide to back to the one thing you know best. Fishing. Yet you find yourself, even in that, a failure. You and a few fellow disciples spend the night fishing and catch not even one fish.
Then a stranger calls out from the shore and has the nerve to ask you if you’ve caught any fish. Exhausted and tired you and your friends yell back, “No!”
The stranger has the gall to then ask you to try throw your net on the other side. Can he not imagine you haven’t already tried there? Yet you decide to give it a try anyway. Suddenly, the net fills with fish and you find yourself reminded of a previous encounter like this. You begin to realize this is no stranger who called out to you. One of the other disciples speaks aloud the truth your heart has already recognized. “It is the Lord.” You run to meet Him. He then asks you and the other disciples with you to have breakfast with Him.
After the meal, Jesus takes you aside. You want to beg His forgiveness. You want to try and explain your actions. You want to . . . But He beats you to the punch and with loving words speaks right into your heart. Three times He asks if you love Him. Three times you answer that, of course, you do. Three times He asks you to feed His sheep. Maybe it was at the moment, maybe it wasn’t until afterwards. At some point you realize Jesus just reinstated you as His chosen leader for His church.

In this moment Jesus showed immense compassion and insight into the life of Peter. Jesus knew that Peter’s betrayal of him would crush him. He knew it would utterly break his heart and if not treated rightly would ship wreck Christianity before it even got started. This, I think, was what Jesus meant by saying that the devil wished to sift Peter as wheat. I don’t think this is a reference to Peter’s future betrayal, but that Jesus knew Peter’s leadership potential and the very future of His church was on the line. That’s why Jesus spoke to Peter as He did in this passage. He told him the exact words he needed to hear in order to get at the root of the problem. What Peter heard and experienced in the exchange spoke right to his broken heart and floundering leadership ability. Jesus knew exactly what to say to Peter.
Maybe you have problems too many to count, issues too weighty to surmount, a life you are finding very difficult to weather your way through. Maybe you feel a bit like Peter did here. Jesus knows your needs. He is attending to them even now. If you slowed down enough to listen, you might even hear Him whispering the very words you need to hear.

Thoughts on the Final Judgement (Remixed)

The following is taken from a devotion that I lead based on the same text as the next posting (Matthew 25:31-46). The main differnce is the story used.

What comes into your mind when you hear these passages? Do you see visions of God sitting on His royal throne separating the Righteous from the unrighteous? Maybe you get feelings of dread? Or are suddenly wondering if you’d be ready if God came back today? Today I wish to share with you a different vision of Judgment Day.
I spent my junior year of college abroad in Israel and while there; I studied a number of Jewish parables. One of the ones that stuck me the most was a picture of heaven. It struck me first off, because there really is not that much Jewish speculation about heaven, and secondly because of it’s content. Let me share it with you and, I think, you’ll gather why it caught my attention.
“I once dreamed I was given a tour of both heaven and hell. In both cases, I entered into a very elaborately adorned dinning room with the food immaculately set up. Then the dinner guests were filed in and sat down at their seats. It was at this point that I realized something was very different between these people and myself. The arms of every one of the dinner guests seemed to be permanently locked at the elbows. Then the eating commenced. It was at this point that I saw a distinct difference between the residents of heaven and the residents of hell. One room stayed immaculately clean the whole meal through, while the other became a total mess. When I took a closer look to discern the reason for the difference, I saw that the inhabitants of the clean room were serving each other, while those in the messy room were continually trying to feed themselves even though they never actually succeeded in getting a single morsel in their mouths. I didn’t even need to ask which was which, for that much was quite obvious.”
Is that the type of picture that you have a heaven, or even or judgment day? What do you think made the difference between the two rooms? The food in both cases was the same. The set up was the same; even the guests themselves looked the same on the outside. Yet once the eating commenced, that was when the true essence of the guests came out. For while the inhabitants of one realized right away that it was only in serving each other that they themselves would ever get fed, the others kept trying to feed themselves.
I think it is the same with the gospel passage I read this morning. Both the sheep and the goats were confronted with people who needed help and while the sheep helped all they saw in need, the goats did not. Why? The difference that, I think, Jesus wanted to emphasize was not how many more people the sheep served than the goats, but the heart behind their serving. The emphasis in the Jewish parable I read was not on the outward behavior of the different people, but on their inner motivations. Do you see the difference?
To me, the distinction is crucial. I have firmly come to believe over the years I have known God, that lasting transformation and change comes not in adapting a certain set of behaviors and learning to live my life right, but receiving Christ into your life and allowing Him to change you from the inside out through the power of His Holy Spirit at work within your heart. Once the heart is changed, outer change will follow suit.
The question I wish for you to leave with today is not what am I doing wrong and how can I become better, but who am I becoming? Am I becoming more and more like Christ every day inside and out? Am I taking the time daily to hear His voice and learn who He is inviting me to become? Am I trying to live my life on my own according to His principles or am I learning to hear His voice and follow Him into the life He is calling me to?

Thoughts on the Final judgment

The following is an excerpt from a brief sermon I preached this past Sunday on the Final Judgement in Matthew 25:31-46,

What comes into your mind when you hear these passages? Do you see visions of God sitting on His royal throne separating the Righteous from the unrighteous? Maybe you get feelings of dread? Or are suddenly wondering if you’d be ready if God came back today? Today I wish to share with you a different vision of Judgment Day.

I spent much of the last year working in and with a relatively young church. During one of their outreach attempts to the youth of the area, they showed a short film left quite an impression on me.

The film started with the father of a typical American family leaving for work. His daughter gives him some licorice for a snack and he promptly puts it in his pocket. He also happens to be wearing a rather warm-looking coat. He drives along and is suddenly being hit by another car.
The next scene shows the same father now heading for a train station. He is now headed for either heaven or hell, I presumed. A conductor gave him a ticket and he headed for the train. Once he boarded, he found that there was homeless woman also aboard the train. Not really desiring to talk with her he takes a seat at a bit of a distance from her. The train started to move.

A little while later the woman appeared to be shivering and said, “Oh, dear. I’m quite cold. Could I borrow your jacket?”
“Sorry, ma'me.” the father replied. “It’s the only one I have and I’m not sure what’s ahead.”
“Of course.” She responded. “ I fully understand.”
Another short time passed and the woman turned to the man and seemed to notice the licorice sticking out of his front pocket. She said, “I sure am hungry. Do you think you could spare one of those licorice you have in your pocket there?”
“Sorry, ma’me.” replied the father, “My daughter gave them to me and they’re all I have to remember her by.”
“Of course.” She responded. “I fully understand.”
Shortly there after the train came to a stop and the father got off. He looked around to see what had happened to the woman, only to find she had vanished.
“Oh well,” he thought. “I’m sure she’ll get whatever’s coming to her.”
He headed off down the road before him, not thinking about it any longer. Then he noticed a staircase before him with a small sign. It read, “This way to Judgment.” And pointed up the stairs. So, up he went.
Then he came to the top of the stairs and found himself in a greenhouse all filled with plant life of many different kinds. Wondering around, he finally came upon the gardener and asked, “Could you point me in the direction of the Judgment?”
“I am the Judge.” She replied. And suddenly the father found himself face to face with the very woman he had just disregarded not once, not twice, but three times.

What was your reaction to that story? Maybe you’re sitting there wondering, “What would I do in that situation?” or “Was how the father acted so wrong?” or “There wasn’t even a warning!” Personally, I see a lot of similarities between the story I just told and the gospel passage I read this morning. In both cases none of those being judged were really aware of what was going on. They never realized that their present actions could have eternal consequences. Yet they did. Most of us never realize the ways we act in our present lives will affect our eternal destiny and yet they will. Why is this the case? Why would God base His eternal judgment on something so arbitrary? It just seems so random. Or maybe not.

Have you ever noticed that people act a lot differently publicly than they do privately? How they may be one person when they’re on display, and another when they’re just living day to day? Why is that? I think it’s because when we know we’re being watched we act exactly as we know we’re supposed to act and when we think we’re alone or just blending into the crowd, we let ourselves loose. We feel free to just be ourselves when no one’s looking. I think God knows this. He knows we wear masks in public and take them off in private. He knows everyone of us has a split personality. Some of us have been wearing that mask so long we no longer know who we really are. He knows that too.

He knows that it’s when our guard is down, when we think no one’s watching that our true essence comes out. He knows we’re ashamed of that side of us, yet that’s the very part of us He came to save. That’s the part of us He is inviting to come follow Him and become like His Son, Jesus Christ. He’s not so much concerned with how much we do for Him publicly as He is about who we are becoming privately. That’s what really matters when it comes to our eternal destiny. Do you see the difference yet?

To me, the distinction is crucial. I have firmly come to believe over the years I have known God, that lasting transformation and change comes not in adapting a certain set of behaviors and learning to live your life right, but receiving Christ into your life and allowing Him to change you from the inside out through the power of His Holy Spirit at work within your heart. Once the heart is changed, outer change will follow suit.

The question I wish for you to leave with today is not what am I doing wrong and how can I become better, but who am I becoming? Am I becoming more and more like Christ every day inside and out? Am I taking the time daily to hear His voice and learn who He is inviting me to become? Am I trying to live my life on my own according to His principles or am I learning to hear His voice and follow Him into the life He is calling me to?